One of the oldest trees on the Common - the so-called ‘boundary oak’ because of its position on the border of Battersea and Wandsworth parishes - and at least 250 years old, became a victim of ‘sudden branch drop’. The prolonged dry weather will have weakened the tree and then the sudden deluge caused water to rise up the trunk very quickly, increasing the weight on the weakened branch. Very sad, as it was such a distinctive and popular tree. Fortunately, the tree team have pronounced the rest of the tree safe and after some judicious pruning and the application of a large amount of mulch, the tree is still there to be enjoyed, hopefully for many more years to come (image courtesy of Lewis MoF).

We tried a couple of new-style events in July.

Nick Rutter, one of our birding experts and walk leader, decided that given that summer is a fairly quiet time for birds, he’d do a more general nature ramble instead, adding bugs, butterflies, dragonflies and wildflowers to his usual offering. Popular as always so we’ll look to repeat it next year.

And we put on a storytelling for children as part of the London Borough of Culture events, hosted by Karima Mohideen. Some lovely stories about dancing trees, the first tree huggers, a cross pumpkin to name but a few. The audience of children and adults were very happy so we’ll look to repeat that too.

We also repeated two of our most popular Heritage events: Sue Delafons and Stephen Midlane’s tour de force telling of the story of PY Betts, whose novel ‘ People Who Say Goodbye’ wrote about life around the Common during WWI; and Sue Demont’s tour of St Mary’s cemetery to examine ‘The Victorian Way of Dying’.